前阵子,DDG同学谈到骑射的作用很小,我一直持怀疑态度。最近看Liddell Hart的Strategy of Indirect Approach,发现骑射在拜占庭帝国的战争机器中有着至关重要的作用:
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At Casilinum Narses held his centre with spearmen
and bowmen, on foot. The charge of the Franks drove
them back, but then Narses wheeled in his cavalry
wings against their flanks. This halted them, and they
promptly faced outwards ready to meet a charge. But
he made no attempt to close with them, knowing that
their formation was too solid to be broken by shock.
Instead, he checked his cavalry just out of range of the
Franks' throwing axes, and ordered them to use their
bows raining arrows on a mass that could not re-
taliate without disjointing its own close-ranked forma-
tion. When, at last, they sought relief by breaking
their ranks, and edging away to the rear, he seized the
opportunity to charge home. This well-timed stroke
shattered them, and scarcely a man escaped.
...
At first glance the interest of the campaigns of Beli-
sarius and Narses appears to be tactical rather than
strategical, since so many of the movements lead
directly to battle and there are fewer examples of cal-
culated manoeuvring against the enemy's communica-
tions than in the campaigns of other Great Captains.
But closer examination modifies this impression. Beli-
sarius had developed a new-style tactical instrument
with which he knew that he might count on beating
much superior numbers, provided that he could in-
duce his opponents to attack him under conditions
that suited his tactics. For that purpose his lack of
numbers, when not too marked, was an asset, especi-
ally when coupled with an audaciously direct strategic
offensive. His strategy was thus more psychological
then logistical. He knew how to provoke the barbarian
armies of the West into indulging their natural in-
stinct for direct assault ; with the more subtle and skil-
ful Persians he was able at first to take advantage of their
feeling of superiority to the Byzantines, and later, when
they learnt respect for him, he exploitedtheir wariness
as a means of outmanoeuvring them psychologically.
He was a master of the art of converting his weak-
ness into strength; and the opponent's strength into a
weakness. His tactics, too, had the essential charac-
teristic of the indirect approach that of uncovering
and dislocating a joint. When asked privately by
friends during his first Italian campaign the grounds
of his confidence in tackling such vastly superior forces,
he replied that in the first engagements with the Goths
he was on the look-out to discover their weaknesses,
and had observed that they were unable to bring their
numbers conceitedly into play. The reason, apart from
the embarrassment of excessive bulk, was that while
his own cavalry were all good mounted horsemen, the
Goths had no practice in this branch; their horsemen
were trained to use only lances and swords, while their
foot-archers were accustomed to move behind and
under shelter of the cavalry. Thus the horsemen were
ineffective except in close combat, while having no
means of defending themselves against a mounted op-
ponent who kept just out of reach and rained arrows
upon them; as for their foot-archers, these would
never risk being caught in the open by the enemy's cav-
alry. The effect was that the Gothic cavalry were always
tryingto get to close quarters, and could be easily galled
into an ill-timed charge, whereas the infantry tended
to hang back when the shielding cavalry got far ahead
so that combination broke down, while a gap was
created into which flank counterstrokes could be driven.
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由这些可以看出,拜占庭的骑射是对付哥特人和法兰克人的有力武器。对于东方的敌人波斯和土耳其,重骑兵是其取胜的关键。
当然,贝利撒留的独到之处在于组建了一支集骑射与重骑于一体的骑兵部队。
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His army bore little resemblance to the classical
pattern of the legionary army it was closer to the
medieval form, but more highly developed. To a sol-
dier of Caesar's time it would have been unrecogniz-
able as a Roman army, though a soldier who had
served with Scipio in Africa might have found the
trend of its evolution less surprising. Between Scipio
and Caesar, while Rome itself was changing from a
city-state into an Empire, the army had been trans-
formed from a short-service citizen force to a long-
service professional force. But military organization
had not fulfilled the promise of cavalry predominance
that was foreshadowed at Zama. The infantry were
the staple of the Imperial Roman Army, and the
cavalry (though the breed of horses had greatly im-
proved in size and speed) had become as subsidiary
as they had been in the earlier stages of the war
against Hannibal. As the need for greater mobility in
frontier defence became more evident, the proportion
of the cavalry was gradually increased, but it was
not until the legions were overwhelmed at Adrian-
ople, in 378, by the cavalry of the Goths, that the
Roman armies came to be reorganized in accordance
with this lesson. And in the generations that fol-
lowed, the pendulum swung to the other extreme.
Under Theodosius, the expansion of the mobile arm
was hastened by enlisting vast numbers of barbarian
horsemen. Later, the recruiting balance was to some
extent corrected, while the new type of organiza-
tion was systematized. By the time of Justinian and
Belisarius, the principal arm was formed by the
heavy cavalry, who were armed with bow as well
as lance, and clad in armour. The underlying idea
was evidently to combine the value of mobile fire-
power and of mobile shock-power as separately de-
monstrated by the Hun or Persian horse-archer and
the Gothic lancer in a single disciplined fighting man.
These heavy cavalry were supplemented by lightly
equipped horse-archers a combination which, both
in form and tactics, foreshadowed that of modern
light and heavy (or medium) tanks. The infantry like-
wise were of light and heavy types, but the latter, with
their heavy spears and close-locked formation, merely
served as a stable pivot round which the cavalry could
manoeuvre in battle.
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好了,开始等待DDG的板砖。
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FROM 13.8.137.*